CHAPTER XLVIII

60Tylor,Primitive Culture, ii. 146sqq.Schneider,Die Naturvölker, i. 217. Bartels,Die Medicin der Naturvölker, p. 27sqq.Höfler, ‘Krankheits-Dämonen,’ inArchiv für Religionswissenschaft, ii. 86sqq.Karsten,op. cit.p. 27sqq.

61Taylor,Te Ika a Maui, p. 137.

62Fison and Howitt,op. cit.p. 250.

63Dorman,op. cit.p. 350.

64Turner, ‘Ethnology of the Ungava District,’ inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.xi. 272.

65Duveyrier,Exploration du Sahara, p. 418. See also Schneider,Religion der afrikanischen Naturvölker, p. 103.

66Livingstone,Expedition to the Zambesi, p. 521sq.

Man’s belief in supernatural agents, then, is an attempt to explain strange and mysterious phenomena which suggest a volitional cause.67The assumed cause is the will of a supernatural being. Such beings are thus, in the first place, conceived as volitional. But a being which has a will must have a mind, with emotions, desires, and a certain amount of intelligence. Neither the savage nor ourselves can imagine a volitional beingwhich has nothing but a will. If an object of nature, therefore, is looked upon as a supernatural agent, mentality and life are at the same time attributed to it as a matter of course. This I take to be the real origin of animism. It is not correct to say that “as the objects of the visible world are conceived as animated, volitional, and emotional, they may be deemed the originators of those misfortunes of which the true cause is unknown.”68This is to reverse the actual order of ideas. Inanimate things are conceived as volitional, emotional, and animate,becausethey are deemed the originators of startling events. The savage does not speculate upon the nature of things unless he has an interest in doing so. He is not generally inquisitive as to causes.69The natives of West Australia, says Eyre, “are not naturally a reasoning people, and by no means given to the investigation of causes or their effects.”70In matters not concerning the common wants of life the mind of the Brazilian Indian is a blank.71When Mungo Park asked some negroes, what became of the sun during the night? they considered his question a very childish one; “they had never indulged a conjecture, nor formed any hypothesis, about the matter.”72I often found the Beduins of Morocco extremely curious, but their curiosity consisted in the question, What? rather than in the question, Why?

67Already Hobbes (Leviathan, i. 12, p. 79) traced, in part, the origin of religion to the fact that when man cannot assure himself of the true causes of things, he supposes causes of them. See also Meiners,Geschichte der Religionen, i. 16.

68Peschel,Races of Man, p. 245.

69Cf.Spencer,Principles of Sociology, i. 86sq.; Karsten,op. cit.p. 43sq.

70Eyre,Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia, ii. 355.

71Bates,The Naturalist on the River Amazons, ii. 163.

72Mungo Park,Travels in the Interior of Africa, i. 413.

Whilst belief in supernatural agents endowed with a will made the savage an animist, the idea that a mind presupposes a body, when thought out, led to anthropomorphism. Impossible as it is to imagine a will without a mind, it is hardly less impossible to imagine a mind without a body. The immaterial soul is an abstraction to which has been attributed a metaphysical reality, but of which no clear conception can be formed. As Hobbes observed, the opinion that spirits are incorporeal or immaterial, “couldnever enter into the mind of any man by nature; because, though men may put together words …. asSpiritandIncorporeall; yet they can never have the imagination of anything answering to them.”73Descartes himself frankly confessed, “What the soul itself was I either did not stay to consider, or, if I did, I imagined that it was something extremely rare and subtile, like wind, or flame, or ether, spread through my grosser parts.”74The supernatural agents were consequently of necessity considered to possess a more or less material constitution. The disembodied human soul which the savage saw in dreams or visions, in the shadow or the reflection, was only the least material being which he could imagine; and when raised to the dignity of an ancestor-god, it by no means lost its materiality, but, on the contrary, tended to acquire a more substantial body.

73Hobbes,op. cit.i. 12, p. 80.

74Descartes,Meditationes, 2, p. 10.

Of a grosser substantiality and very unlike the human shape are the inanimate objects of nature which receive divine veneration. It has been said of savages that they do not worship the thing itself, only the spirit dwelling in it. But such a distinction cannot be primitive. The natural object is worshipped because it is believed to possess supernatural power, but it is nevertheless the object itself that is worshipped.75Castrén, who combined great personal experience with unusual acuteness of judgment, states that the Samoyedes do not know of any spirits attached to objects of nature, but worship the objects as such; “in other words, they do not separate the spirit from the matter, but adore the thing in its totality as a divine being.”76Of the deification of the Nerbudda river Sir W. H. Sleeman likewise observes, “As in the case of the Ganges, it is the river itself to whom they address themselves, and not to any deity residing in it, or presiding over it—the stream itself is the deity which fills their imaginations, and receives theirhomage.”77The animist who endows an inanimate object with a soul regards the visible thing itself as its body.78How a being with such a body, like a tree or a stone, can hear the words of men, can see their doings, and can partake of the food they offer, might be difficult to explain—if it had to be explained. But, as I have said, the inquisitiveness of savage curiosity does not go to the roots of things, and religion is in its essence mystery.

75Cf.Tiele,Max Müller und Fritz Schultze über ein Problem der Religionswissenschaft, p. 35; Parkman,op. cit.p. lxvii. (North American Indians).

76Castrén,op. cit.iii. 192.Cf.ibid.iii. 161, 200sq.

77Sleeman,Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official, i. 20.

78Castrén,op. cit.iii. 164sq.

However, in proportion as a supernatural being comes more and more to occupy the thoughts of its worshippers and to stir their imagination, a more distinct personality is attributed to it; and at length neither the ethereal or vaporous materiality of a departed human soul, nor the crude substantiality of an inanimate object is considered a satisfactory body for such a being. It is humanised also with regard to its essential shape. The Koriaks of Siberia believe “that objects and phenomena of nature conceal an anthropomorphic substance underneath their outer forms”; but they also show the first signs of a belief in spiritual owners or masters ruling over certain classes of things or over large objects.79The supernatural being which is originally embodied in a natural phenomenon is gradually placed behind it. In the Vedic hymns we may study this anthropomorphism as a process in growth. The true gods of the Veda are almost without exception the deified representatives of the phenomena or forces of nature,80which are personified, though in varying degrees. When the name of the god is the same as that of his natural basis, the personification has not yet advanced beyond the rudimentary stage; names like Dyaus (“heaven”), Pṛthivī (“earth”), Sūrya (“sun”), Uṣas (“dawn”), represent the double character of natural phenomena and of the personalities presiding over them. Speaking of the nature of the gods, the ancient Vedic interpreter Yāska remarks that “what is seen of the gods is certainly notanthropomorphic, for example the sun, the earth, and so forth.”81Again, when the name of the god is different from that of the physical substance he is supposed to inhabit, the anthropomorphism is more developed, though never very distinct. The Vedic people always recognised behind its gods the natural forces of which they were the expression, and their physical appearance often only represents aspects of their natural bases figuratively described to illustrate their activities. The sun is spoken of as the eye with which Varuna observes mankind;82or it is said that the all-seeing sun, rising from his abode, goes to the dwellings of Mitra and Varuna to report the deeds of men.83Even to this day the Hindu, to whatever sect he may belong, does homage to the rising sun every morning of his life by repeating a text of the Veda.84The god does not very readily change his old solid body for another which, though more respectable, has the disadvantage of being invisible. The simple unreflecting mind finds it easier to worship a material thing which may be seen, than a hidden god, however perfect in shape. To the common Japanese the sun is still the god to whom he prays morning and evening.85Whilst Chinese scholars declare that the sacrifice offered to Heaven “is assuredly not addressed to the material and sensible heaven, which our eyes see, but to the Master of heaven, earth, and all things,”86the people are less metaphysical; and the Russian peasant to this day makes an appeal to the Svarog of the old religion when crying, “Dost thou hear, O Sky? dost thou see, O Sky?”87That the worship of animals survives at comparatively late stages of civilisation is probably due to the double advantage of their bodies being both visible and animate.

79Jochelson, ‘Koryak Religion and Myth,’ inJesup North Pacific Expedition, vi. 115, 118.

80Oldenberg,Religion des Veda, p. 591sqq.

81Nirukta, vii. 4, quoted by Hopkins,Religions of India, p. 209.

82Rig-Veda, i. 50. 6. Hopkins,op. cit.p. 67.Cf.Rig-Veda, i. 25. 10sq.; i. 136. 2.

83Rig-Veda, vii. 60. 1sq.See Macdonell,op. cit.pp. 2, 15, 17, 23; Muir,Original Sanskrit Texts, v. 6; Barth,Religions of India, p. 178; Oldenberg,Religion des Veda, p. 591sqq.

84Monier-Williams,Brāhmanism and Hindūism, p. 342.

85Griffis,Religions of Japan, p. 87.

86Legge,Notions of the Chinese concerning God and Spirits, p. 38.

87Ralston,Songs of the Russian People, p. 362.

But though man created his gods in his own image and likeness, endowing them with a mind and a body modelled after his own, he never lost sight of the difference between him and them. He always ascribed to them a superior power of action; otherwise they would have been no gods at all. In many cases, at least, he also attributed to them a superior knowledge. The Bechuanas maintain that their gods are much wiser than they are themselves.88In the admonitions of an Aztek mother to her daughter reference is made to a god who “sees every secret fault.”89The gods of the Greeks and Romans were possessed of superhuman wisdom,90and so was Yahveh. It is true that the anthropomorphic god acquires knowledge of the affairs of men through his senses. When hearing the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah, Yahveh said, “I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.”91But the senses of a god are generally superior to those of a man. “A god,” says Orestes, “can hear even from a distance.”92Varuna has an all-seeing eye, and the Zoroastrian Mithra has a thousand ears and ten thousand eyes.93In other respects, also, the bodies of gods excel the bodies of men. Sometimes they are more beautiful, sometimes they have a gigantic shape. When Ares is felled to the ground by the stone flung by Athene, his body covers seven roods of land.94When Here takes a solemn oath, she grasps the earth with one hand and the sea with the other.95In three steps Poseidon goes an immense distance;96in three paces Vishnu traverses earth, air, and sky.97

88Arbousset and Daumas,Exploratory Tour to the North-East of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, p. 341.

89Sahagun,Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, vi. 19, vol. ii. 131.

90Cf.Westcott,Essays in the History of Religious Thought, p. 101.

91Genesis, xviii. 20sq.

92Aeschylus,Eumenides, 297.

93Yasts, x. 7.

94Iliad, xxi. 407.

95Ibid.xiv. 272sq.

96Ibid.xiii. 20.

97Grimm,Teutonic Mythology, i. 325.

However, the tendency to make gods more and moreperfect—of which I shall say more in a following chapter—gradually led to the notion that materiality is a quality which is not becoming to a god; hence men endeavoured, to the best of their ability, to grasp the idea of a purely spiritual being, endowed with a will and even with human emotions, but without a material body. Like Xenophanes in Greece, the Inca Yupangui in Peru protested against the prevailing anthropomorphism, declaring that purely spiritual service was befitting the almighty creator, not tributes or sacrifices.98In the Bible we notice a successive transformation of the nature of the deity, from crude sensuousness to pure spirituality. According to the oldest traditions, Yahveh works and rests, he plants the garden of Eden, he walks in it in the cool of the day, and Adam and Eve hear his voice. In a great part of the Old Testament he is expressly bound by conditions of time and space. He is attached in an especial manner to the Jerusalem temple or some other shrine, and his favour is gained by definite modes of sacrifice. At the time of the Prophets the cruder anthropomorphisms of the earlier religion have been overcome; Yahveh is no longer seen in person, and by a prophet like Isaiah his residence in Zion is almost wholly dematerialised. Yet, as Professor Robertson Smith observes, not even Isaiah has risen to the full height of the New Testament conception that God, who is spirit and who is to be worshipped spiritually, makes no distinction of spot with regard to worship, and is equally near to receive men’s prayers in every place.99Moslem theologians take pains to point out that God neither is begotten nor begets, and that he is without figure, form, colour, and parts. He hears all sounds, whether low or loud; but he hears without an ear. He sees all things, even the steps of a black ant on a black stone in a dark night;but he has no eyes, as men have. He speaks; but not with a tongue, as men do.100He is endowed with knowledge, feelings, and a will.101Thus the dematerialised god still retains a mental constitution modelled upon the human soul, with all its bodily desires and imperfections removed, with its higher qualities indefinitely increased, and, above all, endowed with a supernatural power of action.

98Brinton,American Hero-Myths, p. 236.

99Goblet d’Alviella,op. cit.p. 216. Toy,Judaism and Christianity, p. 87. Montefiore,op. cit.p. 424. Robertson Smith,Religion of the Semites, p. 117.

100Risálah-i-Berkevi, quoted by Sell,op. cit.p. 166sq.

101Sell,op. cit.p. 185.

In following chapters we shall see how the moral ideas of men have been influenced by the attributes they ascribe to supernatural beings.

MENnot only believe in the existence of supernatural beings, but enter into frequent relations with them. In every religion we may distinguish between two elements: a belief, and a regardful attitude towards the object of this belief. At the same time the assumption that supernatural beings exist is not necessarily connected with religious veneration of them. Relations may be established with some of them to the exclusion of others. If the relations between man and a certain supernatural being are of a more or less permanent character, the latter is generally called his god.

As man attributes to his gods a variety of human qualities, his conduct towards them is in many respects determined by considerations similar to those which regulate his conduct towards his fellow men. He endows them with rights quite after human fashion, and imposes on himself corresponding duties.

Gods have the rights to life and bodily integrity. They are not necessarily either invulnerable or immortal.1According to ancient Egyptian beliefs, the life of a god is indeed longer than that of a man, but death puts an end to the one as well as to the other.2The Vedic gods were mortal at first; immortality was only bestowed upon them by Savitr or by Agni, or they obtained it by drinkingsoma, or by practising continence and austerity, or by the performance of certain ceremonies.3Nor were the Greek gods eternal by nature; they secured immortality by feasting on nectar and ambrosia.4The Scandinavian gods had in Idun’s apples a means of preserving perpetual freshness and youth; but for all that they were subject to the encroachments of age, and their death is spoken of without disguise.5

1See Frazer,Golden Bough, ii. 1sqq.

2Wiedemann,Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, p. 173.Cf.Maspero,Dawn of Civilization, p. 111; Erman,Life in Ancient Egypt, p. 265.

3Macdonell,Vedic Mythology, p. 17. Oldenberg,Religion des Veda, p. 176.

4Iliad, v. 339sqq.Odyssey, v. 199.Cf.Grimm,Teutonic Mythology, i. 317sq.

5Grimm,op. cit.i. 318sqq.

Though liable to death, the invisible anthropomorphic gods generally run little risk of being killed by men. But the case is different with such supernatural beings as live on earth in a visible and destructible shape. They may be, and occasionally are, slain by human hands, although in this case killing hardly means absolute destruction, the soul surviving the death of the body. But to kill such a being is in ordinary circumstances looked upon as a dangerous act. We have noticed above that people are often reluctant to slay animals of certain species for fear lest either the disembodied spirit of the slain animal or others of its kind should avenge the injury;6and the danger is naturally increased when the victim and its whole species are regarded as divine. Savages as a rule avoid killing animals of their own totem, and various statements imply that the act is disapproved of.7

6Supra,ii. 491.

7Frazer,Totemism, p. 7sqq.;Idem,Totemism and Exogamy, iv. 6sq.

It has been suggested that this regard for the life of a totemic animal is due to the notion that a man is akin to his totem.8But the various taboos imposed upon him with reference to it, and the nature of the penalties incurred by the taboo-breaker,9indicate that the relation between a human individual and the animal members of his totem are after all somewhat different from that between cousins. It seems that the totemic animal is inthe first place looked upon as a supernatural being, and that a person’s attitude towards it depends on the degree of dread or veneration which he feels for it. Such sacred animals as are not conceived to be of one stock with their devotees are equally tabooed; in ancient Egypt, we are told, offences against holy animals were punished even with death.10On the other hand, so little respect is not seldom felt for the totem that it is treated in a way to which there is no parallel in the treatment of human relatives. Speaking of the native tribes of Central Australia, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen observe, “That the totemic animal or plant is not regarded exactly as a close relative, whom it would be wrong to kill, or to assist any one else to kill, is very evident; on the contrary, the members of one totem not only, as it were, give their permission to those who are not of the totem to kill and eat the totemic animal or plant, but … they will actually help in the destruction of their totems.”11The South Australian Narrinyeri kill their totemic animals if they are good for food.12A Bechuana will kill his totem if it be a hurtful animal, for instance a lion; the slayer then only makes an apology to the beast and goes through a form of purification for the sacrilege.13Among the Menomini Indians a man belonging to the Bear clan may kill a bear, although he must first address himself to his victim and apologise for depriving it of life.14The Indian tribes in the South-Eastern States had no respect for their totems and would kill them when they got the chance.15Among the Thlinkets a Wolf man will hunt wolves without hesitation, although he calls them his relatives when praying them not to hurt him.16

8Robertson Smith,Religion of the Semites, p. 285.Cf.Frazer,Totemism, p. 7.

9See Frazer,Totemism, p. 11sqq.; Spencer and Gillen,Northern Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 322, 324sq.

10Wiedemann,Herodots zweites Buch, p. 279.

11Spencer and Gillen,Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 207.

12Taplin, ‘Narrinyeri,’ in Woods,Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 63.

13Casalis,Basutos, p. 211.

14Hoffman, ‘Menomini Indians,’ inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.xiv. 44.

15Adair,History of the American Indians, p. 16.

16Boas, inFifth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, p. 23. For some other instances see Frazer,Totemism, p. 19.

In certain cases divine animals are killed as a religiousor magical ceremony. Several instances of this have been pointed out by Sir J. G. Frazer.17Sometimes, when the revered animal is habitually spared, it is nevertheless killed on rare and solemn occasions. In other cases, when the revered animal is habitually killed, there is a special annual atonement, at which a select individual of the species is slain with extraordinary marks of respect and devotion. Frazer has offered ingenious explanations of both customs. As regards the former one he argues that the savage apparently thinks that a species left to itself will grow old and die like an individual, and that the only means he can think of to avert the catastrophe is to kill a member of the species in whose veins the tide of life is still running strong and has not yet stagnated among the fens of old age; “the life thus diverted from one channel will flow, he fancies, more freshly and freely in a new one.”18The latter custom, again, is explained by Frazer as a kind of atonement; by showing marked deference to a few chosen individuals of a species the savage thinks himself entitled to exterminate with impunity all the remainder upon which he can lay hands.19These explanations, as Frazer himself is the first to admit, are only hypothetical, but, so far as I know, they are the only ones yet offered. However, it is worth noticing that certain acts accompanying the slaughter of divine animals sometimes clearly indicate a desire in the worshippers to transfer to themselves supernatural benefits—as when they eat the flesh of the animal, or sprinkle themselves with its blood, or by other means place themselves in contact with it; and it may be that in such cases the animal is killed for the express purpose of communicating to the people the sanctity, or beneficial magic energy, with which it is endowed. The Madi or Moru tribe of Central Africa furnish an instructive example. Once a year, as it seems, a very choice lamb is killed by a man belonging to a kind of priestly order, whosprinkles some of the blood four times over the assembled people and then smears each individual with the same fluid. But this ceremony is also observed on a small scale at other times—if a family is in any great trouble, through illness or bereavement, their friends and neighbours come together and a lamb is killed with a view to averting further evil.20Among the Arunta and some other tribes in Central Australia, as we have noticed above, at the time of Intichiuma, totemic animals are killed with the object of being eaten. But here the sacramental meal is a magical ceremony intended to multiply the species, so as to increase the food supply for other totemic groups; the fundamental idea being that the members of each totemic group are responsible for providing other individuals with a supply of their totem.21

17Frazer,Golden Bough, ii. 366sqq.

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